Yes, you definitely need another camera for solar imaging.
For your small telescope the best choice will be
Point Gray Research Flea3-1,3Mpix camera on Sony ICX 445 chip mono. This camera has 1288x954 pixels of 3,75micron pixel size. You will be able to image most of the solar disk at ones, with simplest 0.5x or 0,7x reducer you will have the whole sun disk at the screen.
This camera is very sensitive, almost equal to cameras with 618 chip.

With balow 2x you can image the details on the disk, as well as well defined prominences.

Using ROI for imaging details, you will have fast enough recording data rate. The images will be as good as such small aperture can deliver.

Peoples here and at yahoo Firecapture group will help you with starting imaging the sun with such camera.

For H-alpha solar imaging you don't need an extra camera. You can use ATIK 460EX as the H-alpha image is very bright and 16-bit DS camera can be used efficiently.

You take let say 50 frames (up to 100) like if you would be doing DS imaging, but at sub-second exposures. Set the exposure that you get nearly full histogram fill. Then you can manually delete bad frames and stack the rest (Registax, Autostakkert?), and sharpen it (deconvolution, wavelets... whatever). And thats almost all.

To focus you must look on the image on the live preview. Bahtinov mask doesn't work good with big fat objects as the spikes will be also fat.

USB2.0 is very slow rate camera of todays standards. Only 18 frames per second. And ROI will not help too much. Maximum is 30fps with ROI.

I do use GigE interface with 32fps at 16 bit and full format.With ROI, say, 1288x250 pixels (for prominences on the limb), I can have 90fps for brighter prominences and respectively lower fps in the case of dimmer prominences. If I imaging some details on the disk, I can use, say 600x400pix ROI and the data transfer rate is about 60fps.Very flexible and, I think this is the ideal (today) choice for solar H-a imaging. GigE allows me the cable length up to30-40 meters.

Right now I imaging near the telescope, but next warm season I will image the sun remotely (30-40m) being in conditioned room in front of my desktop computer with large screen and I will not need to be at hot sun.

Before I bought this camera I performed the investigation - what is the best compromise and what is the most comfortable. For small telescopes (short focal length) this is the best one.

Ok, I got the prices for the Flea line up now. Most cameras come with C-Mount or CS-Mount. What is the difference?

Guylain

These camera come with a CS mount as their main use is machine vision or surveillance duty. The 5mm C mount adaptor they are refering to is to allow the use of C mount lenses (it allows these lenses to reach focus with a CS mount). For planetary/solar imaging all that is needed is a 1,25" to C adaptor like this one;http://www.scopestuff.com/ss_c2b1.htm

C and CS mounts have the same diameter, same threaded pitch but different flange depth (shorter for CS).

Around 20 frames I think. The exposures were quite low, almost on the Atik shortest exposures limit. The 8-bit cameras used even shorter exposures (higher gain) but also required more frames to avoid noisy stack. In both cases it works for this type of imaging.

The camera is GigE - so you need to make sure that you have a GigE ethernet port, and also it will need to be powered separately (power is another convenient thing about USB2/3) but it will have 2x the bandwidth of USB2. Its just $20 more than a Chameleon. The ICX693 is a super sensitive sensor - better QE than the ICX618 which is known for its sensitivity. The ICX692 is no hunchback either but its not breaking records like the 693. Of course, there are trade-offs - they have higher speeds but lower resolution than the ICX445 on the Chameleon - so it isn't a clear win across the board. And I have not had any feedback from astrophotographers on this camera line yet... but just wanted to put it out there.

For astronomy there is no difference between C or CS thread as both are the same (sensor backfocus is slightly different to focus with C or CS lenses). You just use the standard 1,25" nosepieces for C/CS cameras (or T2 adapters).

Guylain - yep, as Piotr points out, for your application there is no effective difference between C and CS mount cameras. CS stands for "C short" and has a shorter flange distance to the sensor, but the size and threading are the same as C-mount so it will fit a C-mount adapter.

Piotr - hmmm... sorry that I was talking out of turn. I am not in sales, so when I want to see if a camera is available, I do what you would do, I go to the web page and check the blackfly page . However I didn't look at the fine print that says the ICX693 isn't shipping until next quarter.

AND I don't have QE numbers for ICX693 yet (this was another mistake! I thought they were done but on double checking, found I was confused between the ICX693 and the ICX687... the ICX687 QE is quite good - 75% at 525nm. The ICX693 is still being tuned so reliable numbers are not available yet).

So... sorry! My post suddenly seems rather speculative... a camera that isn't shipping for which I can't back up any claims. There is a reason why I'm not in sales! Please disregard the ICX693 sales pitch until sometime next year

ICX692 mono doesn't "exist" yet and you would have to wait to some early month of 2013. The e2v CMOS sensors in Blackfly is good too. It has much bigger diagonal than ICX445.(and even that Blackfly model isn't yet shipping - but it should start soon )

ICX692 mono doesn't "exist" yet and you would have to wait to some early month of 2013. The e2v CMOS sensors in Blackfly is good too. It has much bigger diagonal than ICX445.(and even that Blackfly model isn't yet shipping - but it should start soon )

Thanks, I know the Blackfly is not shipping yet. I'm not in a hurry so if the Blackfly is a better unit for my use I don't mind waiting.

What is the advantage/disadvantage of a bigger diagonal in the e2v CMOS BlackFly?

Well, I do want to be able to fit the whole disk without mosaic. This is actually a hard requirement for me. I'll be using a 2.5x and/or 5.x televue power mate to increase resolution when I want to image the edge.

What about the Grasshopper GS2-GE-20S4M-C? It has a Sony ICX274 with a 1/1.8" diagonal (same diagonal size as the e2v CMOS BlackFly) with 1624x1224 resolution at 29 FPS.

The QE on the Blackfly's are not ready yet since the sensor guys are still tuning the sensor timing and trying to optimize the performance. But the e2v information should be ready first and since you are registered to get information updates, you should know about the same time I do